preg replace - PHP preg_split Input by <br>, <br/>, <p> into Separate Paragraphs -

i curling page ill-formed code. there particular snippet of page trying parse paragraphs. input snippet may divided <p> , </p> or separated 1 or more <br> or <br/> tags. in cases there 2 <br> tags after another, don't want 2 separate pargaraphs.

my current code i'm trying parse/display is

$paragraphs = preg_split('/(<\s*p\s*\/?>)|(<\s*br\s*\/?>)|(\s\s+)|(<\s*\/p\s*\/?>)/', $article, -1, preg_split_no_empty); $paragraphcount = count($paragraphs); for($x = 1; $x <= $paragraphcount; $x++ )     {     echo "<p>".$paragraphs[$x-1]."</p>";     } 

however, not working expected. different inputs/outputs follows:

input 1: first part </p> <p> second part </p> <p> third part </p> <p> fourth part <br/>

output 1: <p>first part </p><p> </p><p>second part </p><p> </p><p> third part </p><p> </p><p>fourth part</p><p> </p>

my code is parsing input paragraphs; however, it's adding paragraphs containing space.

any appreciated.

input utf-8 if makes difference.

here solution preg_replace:

$article = "first part </p> <p> second part </p> <p> third part </p>              <p> fourth part <br/> <br> fifth part"; $healed = substr(           preg_replace('/(\s*<(\/?p|br)\s*\/?>\s*)+/u', "</p><p>", "<p>$article<p>"),           4, -3); 

it first wraps string in <p> , replaces (repetitions of) variants of breaks </p><p>, remove starting </p> , ending <p>. note not produce (intermediate) array, final string.

echo $healed; 

outputs:

<p>first part</p><p>second part</p><p>third part</p><p>fourth part</p><p>fifth part</p> 

note need u modifier @ end of regular expression utf-8 support.

if on other hand need paragraphs in array, preg_split better suited (using same regular expression):

$paragraphs = preg_split('/(\s*<(\/?p|br)\s*\/?>\s*)+/u',                          $article, null, preg_split_no_empty); 

if write:

foreach ($paragraphs $paragraph) {     echo "$paragraph\n"; } 

you get:

first part second part third part fourth part fifth part